Algonquin’s Portuguese Heritage class is being removed for the upcoming school year due to its low enrollment, staffing concerns and budget limitations.

World Language department head Emily Squires said the decision was difficult, but hopes that the course will return in the future.  

“I recognize that this is a temporary loss and I do hope, and anticipate that after next year, [the class will] be back,” Squires said. 

Squires explained the reasons the class won’t be offered again anytime soon, since the decision came down to staffing and funding.

“It just has to do with staffing and budget, and I was not able to make it work, as hard as I tried,” Squires said. “The whole district and even our superintendent and assistant superintendent really value all of our multilingual learners in the district and they support them very much.”

Portuguese Heritage teacher Jennifer Sousa said she was excited to teach the course because of her personal connection to the language.

“It’s my husband’s language, and we’ve been married for over 36 years,” Sousa said. “Because of my close association with my husband and his family, and the amount of time that I’ve spent in Brazil, it was an exciting opportunity to bring personal experience to the classroom.” 

Sousa said the class also helps students work towards receiving their Seal of Biliteracy, an award that recognizes students who demonstrate proficiency in English and another language.

“The Seal of Biliteracy requires you to know English and something else,” Sousa said. “I think that’s a really good opportunity for Brazilian immigrants that are coming here to America to receive something like that. It shows that having a language, in addition to English, is an asset, not an obstacle.”

Beyond the seal, Sousa said there are numerous other aspects of the class that are important to the Portuguese community, since it gives students a chance to connect with their heritage in an academic setting.

“For the students who are born here and have never experienced Portuguese in a formal academic setting, it gives them the chance to connect their academic life here in the U.S. with their parents’ experience,” Sousa said. 

The class prepares students for a world with hundreds of millions of Portuguese speakers. 

“We learn different accents, different regionalisms so that we make an attempt to understand other people from different nations that speak Portuguese, just in awareness that there’s a Lusophone world,” Sousa said.

The Lusophone world refers to  the people, nations and regions that speak the Portuguese language around the world. Sousa explained that Portugese helps students better understand perspectives beyond their own.

“The class goal is to help us to see beyond our perspectives,” Sousa said. “So that when we travel the world, we can relate to people in a way that they can understand rather than not always expecting them to understand us.”

Sousa shared that apart from the preparation this class gives Portuguese students for society, cultural education is also an important part of the course.

“Regardless of what culture we were talking about, I think a lot of people are uneducated about where they come from and where their families come from,” Sousa said. 

Freshman Samuel Carnie, a student in the Portuguese Heritage class, said the class had a significant value to him.

“I think we have learned a lot because we experienced things [in the class], like watching videos about our culture and listening to songs that make you feel more connected to the culture,”  Carine said. 

Carinie also explains that the class gives him a sense of home.

“I feel like even though I’m here, I can still feel like I’m at home through this class.” Carnie said. 

Junior Mariana Miranda shared a similar sentiment. 

“It makes me feel comfortable speaking in my native language,” Miranda said. “It’s very important to have that because you need to have that safe place for these people that have arrived from Brazil.”

For many students, the class has helped them feel more comfortable after moving to the United States. However, the removal of the class is upsetting to many of the current students, who know the incoming students won’t get to experience it. 

“It makes me upset knowing that they’re gonna get rid of it, because some of the people that are in our class right now came to this country not too long ago,” junior Lucas Oliveira said. “They’re learning English right now in other classes. So this class is kind of something that they can appreciate.”

While Oliveira has been in America for most of his life, he still appreciates the class for its ability to refine his Portuguese, but also to learn more about his culture while having a feeling of nostalgia from Brazil. 

“It’s like a taste of home,” Oliveira said. “It is for me too, even though I left when I was four. It’s sad knowing that it won’t be here next year, because it’s so valuable to us.”